Best way to populate archiva respository without an internet connection

I am setting up an Archiva maven repository on a network without an internet connection. What is the best way to populate the archiva respository without an internet connection and makes updates to it in the future? I have a local repository on my development machine and want to populate archiva with its content.

If you already have a local repository on your development machine and ( this is very important ) , it is in the exact same format as the maven ( .m2 local repo ) then you can simply copy paste the entire .m2 folder on the Archiva's storage folder. Re-start the Archiva application and it will index the storage.